I don’t agree with the characterization. Gambling implies I made a bad choice or got unlucky. That’s not what happened. When you buy a graded item, you are paying a premium for the authenticity. That’s the point of why we grade things, in addition to the condition assessment. The failure was not on me, it was on CGC to incorrectly back the prototypes as authentic. And yes, I’m happy they are doing the right thing in the end in admitting that mistake.
I agree that there is more to these disco cards than the prototypes and there is little reason to think they aren’t what they claim to be (overlooking how they were cut and that it goes unmentioned on the label). But many collectors that would otherwise be interested in these items (ie. myself) just got burned by buying similar items. So you can characterize it as “WAHHHHH CGC”, but that is a flippant way to respond to the reality that the appetite for an item like this may have been seriously undermined with the exact group of people that would be interested in them.
No matter what I say people will favor your opinion…
The CGC hate is just always something that I don’t understand here, and we are all “gambling” to an extent. This is card stock with fictional characters on them. Most of us at this higher level are in our 30s, we’re in it for nostalgia.
It’s a public discussion, not an attack, and I would say my opinion is valid here. The market swings wildly all the time. We don’t know who will dump their cards or when.
My argument is:
CGC is fine, and doing better at grading vintage than PSA right now. Values are catching up to PSA’s sold prices which is good.
As for the prototype cards, I was skeptical from day 1. Regardless of CGC grading them, everyone should have seen that they were bogus. You do have a choice not to buy something or believe their authenticity despite what a third party says, because mistakes have been made long before all this madness. It all started with a booster box…. People making assumptions that the discos are even in the same category as the prototype cards are just flat out wrong. There were sheets, we know they came from WOTC, hand cut or not they are legitimate. If someone doesn’t like hand cut cards, don’t buy it. Simple.
Also, regarding the dump of these discos… there was a certain someone that had a situation and I know there were some of these stashed away. I’m wondering if they decided to unload them for quick cash, but it’s just speculation.
There is a certain someone (person a) who has had several dumpings of random prototypes/uncut sheets, using someone else (person b) to promote them
The play is the same
trickle out a couple to make people think they are scarce
get person b to talk about it on socials
trickle out a couple more to auction
dump the stash when hype builds
But still, none of this reflects badly on CGC - I actually like CGC overall, especially as they recognize errors which is a niche subset of the hobby.
The fall in the price of the discos is probably due to it again being a super niche item, and lack of hype behind them as person a/b have dumped their original stack.
Even if something is older/rarer it doesn’t make them more valuable as everything pokemon is really about market trends and demand.
There is no “fall in price of the discos.” These CGC 10s were listed low as BINs and sold within 12-24 hours. Auction prices of discos from last month and in January show strong prices.
However, now that these sold and set a perceived ceiling price, we may see a fall in the price of low grade copies.
The benefit is that now if I want some I have some strong comps to go off of when I want to buy lower graded copies. The prices people were asking on ebay are a bit inflated.
If Grandma Pratte listed a bunch of Japanese Espeon and Umbreon Play Promos for $5,000 because CardLadder thought that they were the English Pop Series copies, would you readily cite those as strong comps?
Anyone who owns disco prints isn’t going to take these CGC 10 sales seriously and will list at what they want.
No, I go by recent comps when purchasing, but at the end of the day the people who buy them can ask what they want and they will because they aren’t liquid cards.
If I go to buy a CGC 5-8 Disco I’m not paying anywhere near the recent sale of a 10, and that’s just how it works. I don’t care about card ladder.
That’s like when people try to cite Kelley Blue Book when buying a collector vehicle from me. Not the same price data by a long shot. Same with cards. The items in my vault have been valuated at X and have sold for less, I follow those markets closely and I don’t know what they’re basing it off of. Kind of like how you know about these Double Holos and their market.
Recent comps mean nothing if the sales were manipulated higher or lower than what would be considered reasonable by the market. This is why people are skeptical of shilled auction prices. This skepticism doesn’t disappear for low outlier prices.
You are welcome to do what you want when seeking to buy these, but I would be shocked if you were successful at getting one for so cheap outside of Grandma Pratte listing them on Fanatics Collect.
I don’t think I will get one for cheap, you’re missing my point. Comps are comps. If I’m negotiating, I’m using the most recent one and what benefits me. If I’m selling, I’ll price it however I want, but it doesn’t matter if I can’t find a buyer because they’re using the same buying tactics. If these were auctioned they would have gone for more. The last sales were around 3-3500 each for the cards that weren’t the big 3. This really only applies to BIN sales, not auctions.
I don’t really care to argue when I know I’m right about something, everyone is free to formulate their own opinions, but I have put my money where my mouth is.
I’m not missing your point at all. Not all comps are equal. Outliers should not be treated the same. BINs are going to be different than auctions. This is just how markets work in collectibles.
No need to be so arrogant about an opinion.
Your opinion is that comps are comps. My opinion is that outliers should not be treated equally when estimating market price.
I can be arrogant when I’m correct and someone is challenging my opinion. This forum clearly has people that favor certain people and grading companies.
idk who uses comps to price collectibles for bins tho. past comps dont really matter unless its some modern junk that has 10 comps a day
someone offered me 1k for my reputation floor piece which i have at 20k coz someone sold theirs for 1500 (which like why are u offered 1k then???) i told em find one for 1500 and ill buy it from them for double
@tidaldreams I was waiting for you to weigh in, considering you have some pretty good stuff and discos. But here’s the thing. Comps ARE comps. It’s a price point, it may not what we want it to be but that doesn’t erase its validity. If I want a disco card of yours, let’s say…. Poliwrath. If you ask 7k and I’m seeing 3k for a cgc 5-10, especially a 10, I’m not offering even close to that. And I would be absolutely in my right to do so, and you don’t have to sell it!
That’s what I’m saying. Most of the cards up for debate have buyers (myself included) that value them more than these sold prices. Would I let my blastoise go for 3-5k? Probably not. But I would give it some thought if money was right there on the table. But 7-10k+ for anything below the 10? Hell no. Never, doesn’t matter what the owner says. The data is right there.
And not using a comp for BIN? WAT. That doesn’t even make sense.
Data is only helpful if it is high quality. As the data scientists say: if you put shit data in, shit analyses will come out. Outliers aren’t good data. There are entire fields of econometrics and statistics that study the impact of outliers and how to justify their inclusion or correction.
Most consumers are not data analysts, and so outliers become even more problematic for them. If you treat outliers as valid and replicable, then you have a poor understanding of what the market price will be.
This is not what I meant. BINs can land higher than auctions, maybe with the exception of during a boom. If you only look at BINs, you have a limited understanding of the true market price.
You have to gather ALL data. BIN is absolutely part of that data, especially if there’s a gap of a few months in between sales of cards like this. Again, they are niche with a specific audience.
You could remove a 0 for these and I wouldn’t want them. They remind me too much of getting fucked over with the playtests/protos. I’d take them at cost of grading though haha
